


CAN'T RUN FOREVER

by MeJacinta



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anon - Freeform, Dark, F/M, Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers, alternative endings, everybody is a badass, just me :), leta centric, more character arcs and relationships not explored in FB, original characters involved, post Crimes of Grindelwald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 02:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16461692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeJacinta/pseuds/MeJacinta
Summary: Two years after the rise of Grindelwald in Paris , Newt Scamander joins forces with Albus Dumbledore and long lost friends and allies to end Grindelwald's imminent dark rule.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nitto_onna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitto_onna/gifts).



CHAPTER 1

Newt Scamander was not spiting himself. He was here to lure out a ghost. As the trees and their spindly, twisted shadows closed in on him, Newt reminded himself that the letter was real, not an elaborate joke.

Besides, he was already several layers deep in the forest of Snod. Turning back at this point was not only a zero option but also an immense waste of his time.

Newt really had no choice here but to be practical. He would treat this odd excursion as another of his usual adventures out in the wild, searching out rare magical creatures. Nothing unusual here. Merlin’s beard, certainly nothing mental.

Pickett seemed to disagree nonetheless. The Bowtruckle squeaked uneasily in Newt’s coat pocket.

And just as Newt was about to hiss a reprimand, he saw it.

“Leta,” he croaked. But he stepped back, not sure of what to make of the familiar silhouette. 

Leta was glowing eerily in the early moonlight. Her smile, the rare burgundy crescent reserved just for Newt for as long back since Hogwarts, played on her face. She was on the verge of tears.

“Newt.”

Newt hesitated. Neither of them moved from their spots for a tense few seconds. Then Leta, ever the more daring of the two, swooped into his arms. Newt gathered her up into a fierce embrace, fearful that she would dissipate into the night, just like it had happened in his dreams those past two years.

You are real.

Leta’s silk robes slipped from his grip with an audible rustle. She was now holding him at arm’s length, her eyes round and grave. “You came alone---no one followed you?”

Newt suddenly remembered. He gestured at his coat pocket where Pickett was still reeling from the impact of their embrace.  
“Just him,” he answered breathlessly.

Just like fairy laughter, Leta’s laugh echoed lightly into the night. “Oh, Newt,” she cried, hugging him more gently this time, but no less longingly. “I missed you!”

……………………………

 

Several protection spells later, they were huddled up over a fresh fire in a clearing tucked deep in the woods. 

“Why’d you go?” Why’d you leave me? Newt meant to stay.

Leta looked as though that was the last question she wanted to answer now. She drew her knees up to her chin and spoke to the fire instead. “I needed time…and space… just to breathe and figure everything out.” She held up her hands and glared at her fingers as though they were wands she had not practiced with before.

Newt swallowed thickly. “Y-you didn’t have to do it alone.”

“I have been tamed all my life, Newt,” Leta snapped. Her gaze was sharp, feistier than he remembered. “You know what that made me do! But out here I get to be free, I get to be me. It’s where I ---”

“We thought you were dead,” Newt cut in, then cringed at the echo of his own voice.

Leta’s eyes swerved to the campfire, but not even the tricks of the flickering firelight could conceal the agony and shame. An awkward silence fell between them for what seemed like forever before Leta took the jump.

“Theseus…how is he?”

“He is happy,” Newt replied, for the lack of more appropriate words. But he could not exactly think of Gertrude Holloway or her betrothal to his elder brother as inappropriate.

The ghost of a grin came to Leta’s face but her eyes remained expressionless… unreadable. The Lestrange way. “He’s always been the kind to soldier on, your brother. Except, of course, when it came to you.” Then akin to a huntress closing in on a sleeping dragon, Leta’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “How about Tina?”

Tina.

“About Tina…” Newt started to say. How he wished Leta could stop looking at him like that. Like he were a dying puppy. The lump in his throat eventually subsided and he tried, much as he could, to say anything.  
“The…the ICW sent her on a mission. Percival Graves has been leading an operation across Europe ever since … ever since Grindelwald got away. Queenie Goldstein is still missing. ”

“Newt, I’m so sorry…”

“When are you coming back?” Newt blurted out. How long do you plan to stay?  
Leta’s eyes widened. She jerked her head aside as if the mere gesture would erase his implied query. Newt could no longer help himself.

“You can’t run forever, Leta.”

“Whatever from, Newt?”

“Answers!”

In spite of himself, Newt drew back. He just had to. Leta had stiffened more like how gnomes did after their masters dipped them in icy water. But Newt was no cruel person like the gnome masters were, nor was he planning to be one. So he weighed his words, cleared his throat and elaborated more calmly.

“You can’t do this all your life, Leta…run off when it’s time to confront your fears or… those you love. You’re not nearly afraid of your powers, or hurting anyone than you are of staying and experiencing hurt. You want to be lost in the wild so that no one can get close enough. ”

“This is all Dumbledore, isn’t it?” Leta grunted.

“Don’t change the subject.” It was a plea, not an order. And Leta seemed as certain of that as Newt was. She straightened herself up, and finally turned to look at him in silent disbelief. But it was the good kind of disbelief.

Go on, she appeared to be daring him.

And Newt obliged. “I know you trust no one. Not even me. But it doesn’t have to be that way.” He bore his eyes into hers. They were the color of dark well water in a starless sky, rippling on and on. How he wished he could get through the tight vaults he knew had closed off her heart… “Let me find you, Leta. Let me help you…that’s all I ask.”

Stay.

Leta was putting up the walls again. But it was not long before they crumbled down with her. Newt swiftly reached for her face. And the swell of her cheek was wet and quivery under the touch of his fingers. She sobbed freely in the cup of his hand, then stopped as abruptly as she had started. Newt dropped his hand grudgingly.

Lowering her gaze to Newt’s coat pocket, Leta addressed Picket the Bowtruckle, whom had been watching her quietly. “Pickett, do you have room for one more?” 

Pickett jumped with a chirp. After all it was not uncommon for creatures to mirror their owners’ emotions.

“Fine, Newt,” Leta answered finally. “I will stay.” 

No more words were left to spend. The fire crackled on like a distant round of applause.


	2. Runes On A Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina and Percival track a lead in Bulgaria, the land of Dumstrang glory..in there search for Grindelwald.

Tina Goldstein was fit for the job, Percival Graves thought. But barely safe. 

As her tall, over coated frame began to slip in and out of shadows, Percival bit back his urge to bark out, gliding forward to soundlessly fall into step with her instead. 

Tina jumped as he slid a firm hand under her arm and drew her slightly behind him. Her lips were a white, thin line as she frowned at him pointedly. Piss off, Tina's face seemed to imply.

“Shh!” Percival said. He drew an arc in the air with a flare of his free, gloved hand. And almost immediately, a dozen Aurors joined them.

Tina felt the first burst of words roll out from her mouth since coming to Bulgaria.

“No,” she protested. “This is barely necessary---”

“Protocol, Goldstein,” Percival interrupted, squinting at the distant darkness framed between two, towering stone pillars.

Tina frowned. “There goes the so-called element of surprise.” 

Percival turned to the Aurors flanking him nonetheless.“Enrique, skirt the perimeter. Orion, I need you to stand here… make the call if Goldstein and I don’t return in half an hour. The rest of you secure the perimeter in duos down each door.”

“We are better off alone,” Tina insisted, this time punching Percival with the best matter-of-fact tone she could master.

But Percival, brick wall and all, merely tilted his head at her suggestion before making his point for almost the hundredth time since leaving MACUSA Headquarters. 

“Eyes on the prize. Remember that Goldstein?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Two years had passed since Paris. Queenie was still missing. However, the International Confederation of Wizards insisted she was not. Insisted that the last they had tracked Queenie was here in Bulgaria seemingly Grindelwald’s newest right hand woman. 

Was Tina buying any of it? No. Queenie had slipped but she had certainly not fallen. Her baby sister was nothing more than a hostage...a hostage of guilt, confusion and sadness. 

After everything Tina had done to recover Percival back in America, he had naturally chosen to trust her side of the story--- even rooted for her viability before Madam Picquery to join the assault team. He had agreed to help Tina find Queenie. Right now, though, she doubted he understood her as much as he had claimed he did.

Percival’s advance went undisturbed through the pillars and up some spiraling stone steps beyond, chipped and weathered from age. 

This must have been an ancient family residence, Tina thought, closely following behind Percival. She rushed to keep up with him wishing that she had kept up with her physical training better_Percival literally moved like lightning!  
“What did you say was seen here?” Tina asked once she had reached her commander.

“My close sources say inscriptions,” Percival whispered a bit too low. “On a wall…well hidden. Runes I think.”

Tina froze. Had Mama not been an expert at Runes? But then again, Grindelwald had a host of magical experts on his sides, certainly even the most distinguished scholars in the wizarding community. 

Regardless, a memory flashed across her mind to counter her latter excuse. One of an adorable blonde girl sitting by a fire, perusing through a book of Runes as Mama instructed her on the ancient alphabets. Tina at the time had called them Greek jibber and stomped off to her corner of the living room...because bedtime stories mattered more.

“There are special words you will want to share with the people you love the most one day, my sweet. When you are in trouble,” Mama had told Queenie. “This is the only way to keep your message from strangers.” 

Tina commenced her ascent up the stairs, feeling a dull tug in her gut. If she had only paid more attention to Mama’s words before the Dragonpox… 

Tina cringed, the unfamiliar sensation of feeling stupid rushing to her. It washed over her in waves so intense she could have stumbled down the stairs. 

“What are you telling me, Queenie?” Tina wanted to ask out loud. “What are you telling us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing the dynamic between Graves and Tina.  
> Also, it would be so awesome to get a true peek into the Goldstein sisters' family life! ...to make them more solid and realistic characters. 
> 
> Anyways, this is a short chapter to get us started on the mission of the story.

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed writing this conversation. The gorest of Snod is my own creation. Otherwise, all other settings will be Harry Potter and FB settings. 
> 
> Feel free to leave comments.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
